What are the primary differences between the three Star Wars trilogies (Original, Prequel, Sequel)

Why don’t YOU tell us ?

The original trilogy made more interesting stories, because jedis/siths force abilities were more limited. Now, especially in the Disney trilogy, anything seems to be possible. Pacing of the Disney trilogy is crap, there's no tone or atmosphere. And lets not forget CGI overload. Special effects shots used to be more expensive in the 70's and 80's, so they had to make every shot count and use them sparingly, and in general put more thought into them. Show value of CGI lost its impact 20 years ago.

The original was good, the prequel blah, and the Sequel meh.

Original Trilogy: Fun, original, great action scenes, good character development, well-told, kinda grim at times, special-effects sort of hold up.

Prequel Trilogy: Fun, not quite as good, both good and bad acting, cheesy dialogue, but helps to explain a lot that happened before the OT. Good special-effects, great costumes, fun action scenes, and an interesting glimpse into the galaxy before the Empire took over.

Sequel Trilogy: Chaotic, stupid, poorly-written, drags on the coattails of the OT, bad acting, no plan at all with story-telling, breaks canon every chance it gets, glorifies the lead and gives her everything without her having to work for it, insults and degrades Luke, as well as making the OT characters look old, faded, and forgotten, has no real direction beyond fanfiction-level good vs. bad setup.

the fx. the heroes. the third trilogy does not use the normal every day star wars aliens found in the first two trilogies.

TONE: OT maintains, mostly, a spirit of old adventure serials, but manages to blend it quite nicely with some borrowed Eastern mysticism (or pseudo-mysticism). It presented the future as "lived-in" (I've heard Lucas had to fight to convince designers to scuff up the props and sets). It is optimistic, but has darkness on the edges.

PT's tone is wonky. It oscillates between cartoony kids' stuff to political drama to dark tragedy and back, often at whiplash speeds. There's a moment in the making-of documentary where they're talking about The Phantom Menace after a first-cut screening and one of the production team members points out to Lucas, "In a space of about 90 seconds, you go from lamenting the death of a hero to escape to slightly comedic with Jar Jar to Anakin returning ... It's a lot in a very short time." That's just one moment from one movie. Phantom Menace can't even pick a main character but is geared towards kids, Attack of the Clones is a (crummy) love story and a political thriller, not well-blended, and Revenge of the Sith is a dark tragedy. In short: the tone is mish-mash, hodge-podge, and all over the place.

ST also switches tones, but not quite so radically. The first film's tone is quite similar to the OT's tone of "adventure serial", but it does feel a little forced. It's committee-built. The second film tries to maintain the adventure feel, but undercut it at the same time. This was seamless in Empire Strikes Back where the adventure just got darker, but here it's too deliberate and, again, feels forced. Plus, The Last Jedi throws in wacky comedy played deadpan (the lightsabre flip, the crank call from the x-wing, etc.) and drops those moments into otherwise serious scenes or as icebreakers (in Episode VIII of IX - we need no icebreakers). The final film feels rushed. It feels like it's trying to be light, fun, but intense - again, aiming at adventure - but this time around it feels like it never stops to take a breath.

Atmosphere:

I sort of covered this in "tone". I'm not sure how to parse the difference. The originals have a bit of that great '70s grit, fly-on-the-wall vibe mixed in with throwback/nostalgia/Flash Gordon stuff. It's pretty light at first, gets dark with Empire, and maintains a lot of that throughout Jedi (mitigated/reduced by Ewoks, of course).

PT's atmosphere gets darker over the course of the series. It starts as a kids' film (with weird elements of adult stuff mixed in), moves to a(n inexplicably) forbidden love story, and finishes with a very grim finale (although one whose grimness feels a bit forced to me).

The atmosphere of the sequels might be the most uniform. Good or bad? I leave that to you. They have pretty similar levels of light-dark and a consistent level of fun vs. grim.

THEME:

OT: Lots to cover here. It's the hero's journey, expanded. The first film Luke goes from farm boy dreamer to hero, the in No.2 from hero to would-be Jedi who has his whole universe turned upside-down by the end, and then he goes from Jedi to saviour who is more concerned with saving a soul than lives. It's a beautiful arc that goes from a glory-seeking desire to have an adventure into an introspective journey of self-discovery and focusing on what really matters. OT gets enough into mysticism to have a flavour of depth. It has themes of self-discovery, family, heroism, good vs. evil, redemption, sacrifice, love (of a couple different kinds (with Luke and Leia's kiss...maybe one kind too many), and probably a bunch of stuff I'm leaving out. I'd say family, self-discovery, and redemption are the biggest themes. Most of them are blended well, too.

PT: Overriding arc is that of a hero's fall from grace. It combines this with the fall of a republic/ demise of democracy, and chronicles the end of an era of peace. It explores how darkness and emotions can overwhelm oneself. None of this is well-executed - the political stuff feels particularly clumsy - but those are the themes.

ST: It puts a lot into "self-discovery". Rey really wants to know who she is. I would say it also has themes of belonging, denial, friendship, and...I dunno "the past catches up with us". The themes here feel less well-integrated and, again, are often not particularly well executed.